Here is a little something I have so far. I would imagine this would look best for hard track use. I'm working on making it look like it came out of a tough rally stage, but I would think it would have dirt pretty much covering the entire car with varying thickness. Since the original layer was meant for hard track looks, it's kinda tough to get it to look like it was in dirt with believable quality.

Does anyone think distributing poor quality public skins while privately distributing the hi res one would work?

It would be nice to race with a different color at least, and blurry textures would scare me away from using it at least. It would kinda suck for replays, but I wouldn't really mind much with that.

Hell, if everyone puts 50 KB skins on LFSW, I could load them in sim! (Still on dial up...)

I've raced in sims where you have to be stopped before you get off track. Even without waiting for a period of time, it works great.

I also don't like when people get off track as soon as possible. It's just not right... I think 10 seconds is far too long to wait to get off track. I would suggest around 2 or 3 if any, but you do have a nice suggestion.

Not only is it better for spins and crashes, it would help when people just want to leave the server. Several times I'll be running near someone and they'll suddenly disappear. Most times it's from lag, but sometimes they just wanted to leave. I would panic a bit less if they pulled off the track to stop before they vanished.

Not really a fan of the pink, but I really like the second paint. The base pattern is pretty cool.

If it's dirt you're looking for, I can either throw something together or give you some original files that I'm working with. They're not meant for LFS, but they can certainly work very well.

I've taken on the task of painting my own fleet cars for LFS. I'm pretty much taking my knowledge from painting my NASCAR rides and bringing it over to LFS. I've found the shadows I was looking for (or at least some that I'm content with for now) but I couldn't put my finger on what was missing from my old racing days.

I finally figured out what I was missing tonight. Dirt. I really like my car looking like I just came out of a several hour bout on the track picking up dirt and rubber along the way.

I decided to chop up a few layers from one of my old templates (can't believe they're 4 years old now...) to see how it would work on the XRG (my standard test subject) and I would think it would look fairly nice. I can't tell to much yet as my skins are dark in nature. I'm typing this trying to keep my head off the keyboard right now which is why I'm not going to go any further tonight.

Right now I plan to make several different options. One for hard tracks, and a few variations for rally tracks. It will all depend on how much you want.

How many are interested? It's a bit odd I'm sure, but I can't be the only one interested in this.

Quote from Keling :

How about a skin-missing colour option ?

Thats exactly what I was thinking. I don't know why I couldn't sum it up as well as you.

This was the only reason I didn't bother with collecting skins in NR2k3. Hell, it already happens when you add AI to a race.

Or we could use a system to send others a public skin while the user uses a private skin. I always updated my cars and didn't bother submitting it to the website while I was league racing. Everyone else got my first version while I always saw my up to date skin.

Not sure if something like that would be worth the trouble either.

I think this could really shake up some racing series'. It could make some pickup races. Could also be good to even things out for drivers who are dominating pickup servers.

I'm mixed with a suggestion like this.

While I was in rFactor, many tracks required you to drive from the paddock to the track every time. It is kinda nice every now and then, but to keep the car at pit speed for some of those long paddock roads is just annoying after a while.

I think it would be kinda nice for leagues and racing series', but not for pickup races.

I would really like to see something like this implemented. I tend to get pretty damn greedy over my skins and don't really want everyone else using it, however, I would rather have my car's skin viewable than force others to view a white car.

Maybe if LFS randomized the colors of cars that had no skins it'd make it less annoying.

Maybe there's a slight misunderstanding here.

IMHO, the crowd shouldn't be shouting over the cars or anything, but I'm pretty sure people have conversations or what to speak to their buddy when there is a bit of time where no cars are coming by.

I a low murmur for a crowd in game. Speaking just loud enough to be heard by the person next to them over the others talking. Of course, the more people you have in that crowd, the louder the person must talk.

Also now that I think about it, with the types of mods I've seen around, another user pointed out that there is quite an extensive detail a person could go into with something like this. The events that can trigger responses insim are absolutely astounding.

I finally remembered it was my first sim, Nascar Racing 2003 Season that had the crowd noise I was thinking of. I merely played a crowd just before you got in the car for the race IIRC.

I really like the idea of deforming the tracks. It would really help us create better memories and better ourselves as drivers.

The cars, IMO, would be a better suggestion for league racing. I really don't think it's a bad idea though.

Nearly all Formula 1 races and most DTM races I watch you can hear many of them in the background.

It would be a nice feature to help the simmers feel more like their actually racing. I really love this idea.

I believe I heard in another sim that you could create a "Box" of an area where if anyone went through, it could trigger an action. Not sure if it's possible with LFS.

+1 Would love it.

heh Should have made it a 2 year absence. I for one would love this idea. I do plan on league racing again soon and would love to just add a few servers to make a smaller list.

I think it would be a great detail to implement later on.

I've run into this problem as well unexpectedly, but then again I should have taken a bit of a better look when I say the scuff marks on the sidewall after taking a turn a bit too hard...

To be honest, the only reason I think it's a good idea is because we do have such tires in LFS that would have this problem, and there is quite a bit of interest in those types of cars.

It sounds kinda crazy, but I would rather enjoy an odometer. It may relay some fairly useless information, but it's information that I wouldn't mind knowing.

Just for kicks, I read the information in my rFactor odometer for a car I was practicing in months ago, and realized I put over 300 miles on it in a day. that was my cue to leave the computer for a little while...

The first time I tried to pit in LFS, I didn't know what to do with myself. I drove through several times because no one told me which box was mine!

All other race sims I've been in have given me a specific pit box to use usually based one the order in which the players joined the server.

I think it would be fairly easy to include a feature like this, but time consuming. I would think the hardest part of it would be how to clearly and realistically mark the pit boxes for each player. NR03 did GREAT with this! rFactor seems to have a rather rudimentary system in place that make me glad my pedals won't work in it...

I also would like to see about getting transmission system damage here. I often find myself carelessly shifting the gears and making MANY mistakes, yet I don't correct myself because I know there are no repercussions if I continue...

I learned how to shift a lot more smoothly in other sims after a shattered a few gears. It kinda added a new challenge and was fun to find the limits of the gears.

Indeed. I loved that system so much. The only problem I see with that is in LFS, you can't really select another track's list currently at least to get a setup from a different track. I did that quite a bit in NR2k3. I'm pretty sure they could implement the option to do that, but I'm not sure how difficult it would be.

I really like the sounds of these ideas. I often have several different setups for each track depending on what I want it to do, and in LFS it gets quite cluttered and unorganized. It's pretty hard to find the setup I want sometimes.

IMO, they should count them the same way as NASCAR and MANY other racing series do. Only count the position of a car at the line unless cut short by a yellow flag or something equivalent. In that case, take the last possible sector split unless you can get a more up to date comparison such as from an admin or something.

Ah, but 13 months ago I was without internet and could not purchase LFS.

I love the idea. I sometimes find myself passing cars off track and not noticing that I had actually gained the lead in doing so for several laps.

Quote from dougie-lampkin :

Woohoo 3rd last (Although it must be a bit old...We can get up to 30mbps in cities now ya know)

LFS should run fine for you, think of all the people on dial-up who have much worse speeds, and they manage fine. As for the bandwidth, I don't have an exact figure, but there's no fear of your 800-odd MB being used up in an evening. I'd be very surprised if you couldn't get a week's worth of LFS out of it to be honest

I've managed a few good battles on my dialup connection. I just need to avoid the race starts, so I start from the pits.

IMO, there are far too many variables to try to guess at how long you'll be able to run LFS.

A possible solution for the less grip on the rumble strip is to break heavily while on the track, then when you want to lessen the break pressure, you can hop onto the curb to open up the radius.

I've not had any problems with that though. The only problems I have is upsetting the car's balance while I'm on some raised or oddly angled curbs.

Quote from ATHome :

I better shouldn't tell here, what I am doing while driving on the straights...

There might be children around

lol I thought it would be fun to have my girlfriend around while I race while we lived together, but every time I got the wheel out, she disappeared...

Anyhow... I usually take a drink, bite, scratch myself, check the TV behind me, but usually, I get bored and start thinking of things like "What will I do for dinner tomorrow?" or "I wonder if I'll get lucky tonight..." or something like that...

Wow, 3 answers in the same minute...

I was also wondering this, but it wasn't as important to me to find out, so I just let it go. Thank you for the information.